Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Chapter One

Getting the hang of this
now, so after some serious deliberation I'm going to blog. My first aim is to add a taster of my book “Walking on Marshmallows”
I’m in the throes of getting it published, so it still might be in a bit of a
raw state, so if you see any typos I've missed in spite of a hundred edits
just ignore please.But before I do, I want
to have a little rant (isn't it after all what blogging’s about) so bear with,
and then settle back with a nice cuppa and have a
jolly good laugh--especially you ladies, you'll know what I'm talking about
when you get there...

In the meantime, to get some
inspiration this morning I surfed through a few blogs and just happened upon a
wonderful quote: “a great artist is a
slave to his ideals”---thank you David Pilgrim, superb artist that you are,
for that. Since the man in my life is one of those (an artist, that is) I have
observed this a hundred times, and it got me thinking how alike we as writers
are, only I wouldn't use the word enslaved, I'd say we're shackled--them to
their palettes, us to our computers.

Having said this, I do have
to sheepishly confess. It's all lies...

My problem is: I fanny about
too much. It can take hours to knuckle under. First it starts with this
inexorable urge to…(no not push, this is not a blog between midwives, so get
with the programme) now where was I, oh yes…check emails. It's like a drug,
problem is, it's never any sodding different-- all junk. NEVER the one I'm
waiting for, the one that will change my life---

Dear Janey, Wow, we just read your partial (that’s the first three chapters
you send off to publishers who sit in great big swivel chairs and shred you to
pieces until you’re left with stumps for nails) and heaven’s above we love it, and we want to represent you, and we
want to turn your book into a blockbuster movie…and we want to offer you a
seven figure contract and--

Slap...

That was me, I did it to myself.
One has to. So then I move on from emails to blogs, from blogs to Facebook,
from Facebook to ... oh dear, the next is pretty pathetic. I try to restrain
myself, but I can’t, I simply can’t. I have to pass through another author's domain—just
for comparison, you understand. It’s usually one highly successful with all the
above-mentioned trappings. Here I have a long, destructive, green-eyed pity
party after which I usually need a shot of something, and since it's not quite
midday I have to make do with a boring old latte and a chocolate hobnobs...or two or three.
That usually gets rid of any dark thoughts, and I'm back to a blank screen, cursor
blinking back at me like a tired old heart monitor.

Every possible stalling tactic
exhausted I now have no excuse; In between supping coffee I’ve straightened the
towels, tried three different hair styles in front of the mirror, locked away
the telly remote,and even gone for an imaginary pee.

You’re insane woman.

It's time!

Finger hovers.

Oh wait, hang on, I haven't
checked E-bay! Or ordered that great new moisturizer on offer on Beauty Budget!
And what about DI Banks? It’s on again tonight, and I won’t know what the hell’s
going on unless I watch catch up.

Let me see, what’s the time? Ah
plenty of it; if I start at two I can bash out a couple of hours work—and who
was it said knock up a thousand words a day and you’re well on your way to
being a great author?!

Ah yes Steven King---wasn’t he the
one who wrote Pet Sematary (and no that is not sic)? and yes I know, he wrote about a clown turning into a giant
spider…and oh just shut up…

Anyway, here’s a little taster of
my forthcoming book.

Enjoy--and that's an order!

-1-

Love, honour and ovulate…

That’s the trouble, thought Angie with a tiny
spasm of anxiety as she wriggled self-consciously out of her knickers, far too much bloody information and
technology. Feeling horribly ventilated round the bottom area she straightened
up. If it was fifty years ago nobody would give a toss, because of course they
wouldn’t know who she was, or be able track her down to remind her that she had to partake in this ... this vile, demeaning act of debauchery.

She stared in the tiny chipped and beveled mirror,
fixating as she always did on her nose. It was a matter of opinion of course,
but in her eyes it was either too big, or two fat, or too Miss Piggy. This
morning it looked enormous! She looked like a corpse as well, which was
obviously the light, she thought decidedly. She couldn’t possibly look this white, could she? Course she wasn’t
nervous or anything. Glancing down at her bare, goose-bumped legs, her
sphincter did a tiny lollop. Well maybe a teeny bit, it was only natural, after
all it wasn’t every day you had to bare all to a complete stranger—well not a
complete stranger, obviously. He’d seen her bits before, on several occasions
actually.

And everybody did it. Well not everybody, that was a
slight exaggeration of course. Now let me see. She did a quick calculation.
According to the beautiful Miss Katie Melua there were nine million people in
this world. Or was that bicycles…? Never mind; totally irrelevant. The
fact was half of those were female so if one discounted women over ninety,
female vicars and those that batted for the other side, oh and kids of course
(good God!) it was fair to say at least thirty percent were about her
age, thus quite possibly in the same boat as she was at this very moment.

Hm.

Slightly mollified, Angie rolled her knickers into a tight
ball and poked them discreetly out of sight into the toe of her shoe. She’d go
in there guns blazing. Yes, absolutely. She Angela Maria Nightingale was a
woman of the twenty-first century. She was young, she was demographically labelled,
she ate orange couscous with Gogi berries, and wore Kate Spade jeans (a
miraculous charity shop find, but so what?) and was just as capable as the next
of having a Brazilian (and one of these fine days she would!) and if she
hurried up now and got this damn thing over with she could be home in time to
watch Homes Under the Hammer!

Hoorah!

‘Are you going to be long in there?’

Angie almost jumped out of her skin with fright.

‘Only I’m running a bit late,’ continued with the voice
with forced cheeriness.

‘Well sod off then,’ muttered Angie under her breath, and
slumped against the sink.

Arrrgh haaaah. Who was she kidding? Like hell she
wanted to do this. She glanced over at the window, and quickly discounted the
idea. She suffered terribly from vertigo.

‘I’m going to have to rush you…’

Rush her? Honestly, who did he think he was, sodding Dermot
o’ Leary? Ooh, bloody fucking hell, she scratched her scalp with frustration.
She was beat and she knew it.

‘Coming,’ she called back with a croak. After this, she
decided resolutely, she’d go and have a nice, civilized cappuccino and read her
Elle Decoration mag. Placing a starfish hand over the crack of her bum,
she took a deep breath and scuttled into the next room.

-2-

Hm, maybe female vicars did do
it, thought Angie staring pensively up at a crack in the coving. And those that
batted for the other side. Anyway, never mind that, the trick here, right now was to stay
calm, and no eye contact with the enemy, no eye contact with the enemy, no eye-- ‘Oh
hi there,’ she did a little cough and grinned ostentatiously at a pair of bandy
legs in creased gabardines hobbling towards her with a slight hup-one-two gait.
‘Sorry about that, it’s just--’ she almost gagged as a cloudburst of Old Spice
engulfed her. ‘I’m a bit nervous.’ she managed, twisting her head to one side,
and landing boss-eyed on a full blown, cross-sectioned poster of a fanny.

‘Tosh and nonsense, now just relax.’

Oh re-e-ally, she gripped the side of the bed, easy for
him to say.

‘That’s better, now can you slide your bottom down a bit?’

Slide-bottom-down-a-bit, hmm, yes, she supposed she could
manage that.

‘Well done. Now flop the old knees apart.’

Now hang on a minute. A scream started to claw its way up
Angie’s throat.

‘A bit wider.’

Okay, stop! Stop right there! Floor I demand you swallow
me whole! Oh God! Maybe now was a good time for a nice string of therapeutic
four letter word.

Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at
the hour---

‘So how are things in the upstairs department?’

Upstairs department? Angie dragged her eyes off the
poster. ‘Fine,’ she replied cagily.

‘Only my dear wife, God rest her soul, always used to say
upstairs was the tricky part.’ A pair of specs suddenly debuted over the rim of
her perineum. ‘We have these huge beams to contend with, you see.’

Good God, Angie looked away horrified. Someone here’s
obviously been watching a re-run of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, honestly,
what a cheek. Still, she supposed she ought to be just as flippant.

‘Well, um,’ she cleared her throat. ‘Matt and I do
have a very healthy sex life ... obviously. I mean we’ve only been
married a year, but you know how it is, pressures of life that sort of thing.
Matt’s got his own business now,’ she cringed as something icy slid between her
thighs. ‘So um, we hardly get time to catch a cold, never mind...' she glanced
down at the Einstein thatch hovering between her thighs. What should she call
it? He was ancient so probably read a fair bit of Jilly Cooper raunch. ‘…a bit
of the old rumpy pump---’

‘Only the last time I saw you,’ there was a rather
worrying cranking sound, followed up by a muted slurp. ‘You were telling me all
about your renovations upstairs.’

Angie’s face froze. ‘Oh…right, those, yes, well actually
they’re not finished yet?’‘Not finished!’ exploded the doctor as if he was on a
podium at a doctors’ convention, endorsing the fact much to Angie’s relief that
he was a bit deaf. ‘Goodness me,’ he puffed up, sending tremors along the
examination bed. ‘But that was over a year ago.’

A year ago! Angie stared studiously at a crack in the coving.
Good grief, he was right. They really did need to get a move on. They’d been so
enthusiastic when they first moved into their little two up two down and set
about tearing up all the vile, moth infested carpets, even doing a half-baked
job of sanding the floorboards. Nine months later, the excitement having worn
off a bit, the floorboards now bore a slight resemblance to the Olympic flag
from all the mug and wine glass stains.‘Matt and I agree on most things I have to say, but I’m afraid we’ve hit
a brick wall here—he can be very stubborn, you know,’ she added as an
afterthought.

‘Is that so?’ the doctor glanced up from scribbling squeaky
hieroglyphics on a glass slide.

‘The thing is,’ Angie eased up on her elbows and tossed
her thick mane of toffee hair off her face. ‘Matt wants those white tiles that
they have in the London underground—which are very nice and edgy. But I just
love mosaic.And he wants boring old
varnish on the floor, and I want blue wood-wash with perhaps a few clouds and
doves stencilled here and there. ’

‘Sounds romantic…um...you can close your legs now Angie
dear.’

‘Beg pardon…?’

‘Your legs…’

‘…oh…right.’

‘Now everything
appears in order, so run along.’ Doctor Heaton gave her upper thigh a congenial
little tap which, in light of their prior intimacy, felt weirdly intrusive.
‘I’m running a bit behind this morning,’ he continued distractedly. ‘But I’m
sure I can squeeze in a five minute chat.’

-3-

‘The thing is,’ Angie re-crossed her legs then shuffled
even deeper into the recess of the desk. ‘It’s not the be all and end all, is
it?’

Doctor Heaton glanced at his watch.

‘I mean the world’s so chocker block full of humans, isn’t
it? We’re like ants, bursting at the seams. I bet by the year twenty-twenty,’
she steamrollered. ‘We won’t be able to move for bodies, let alone feed them.’ I
hate to say this,’ she said after a pause. ‘Actually no, I’m glad to say this.
Matt and I have made a firm decision—last night actually,’ she denoted. ‘We’re
not having any, no siree. And I feel wonderful about it, frankly, almost
pioneerish if there is such a word. What do you
think Doctor Heaton? Doctor Heaton…?’

Doctor Heaton, who’d gradually lapsed back into a
sedentary, vacant-eyed pose, pinkie resting delicately in one nostril, jockeyed
round at such velocity his vast belly almost knocking the computer keyboard off
the desk. ‘Sorry?’

‘Babies.’

He looked at her uncertainly and then re-aligned his
keyboard. ‘What about them?’

‘We don’t want any,’ repeated Angie with self-importance.

‘Oh, I see.’

Your feedback will be very much appreciated by clicking on the "comments" button below!

Well, I laughed out loud re the procrastinating....I think you are dead right that writers and artists are the same! And I enjoyed the writing and love that the lack of explanation sends the imagination into overdrive! Definitely more please.

Hi, Janey, I really enjoyed your "taster" chapter. I love funny and amusing novels and this looks very promising. There was a big element of suspense as we didn't know what was going on, had all sorts of ideas and still not completely sure of the whole picture which leaves me wanting more. But I certainly recognize the situation and the embarrassment and vulnerability of it so good to get humour out of it.Not sure either if you will get this as have tried already to post comment without success.